Articles on Primal Therapy, psychogenesis, causes of psychological traumas, brain development, psychotherapies, neuropsychology, neuropsychotherapy. Discussions about causes of anxiety, depression, psychosis, consequences of the birth trauma and life before birth.

Wednesday, January 13, 2016

Even Your Blood Remembers

Lest you think that only our brain remembers, it turns out that almost every part of us, every cell also remembers. And that memory stays alive for most or our lives. That is exactly why we need a therapy not just for current symptoms of migraines or high blood pressure, but of something that affects every part of us. That means those key imprinted memories that have detoured our lives, changed our destiny and our evolutionary trajectory. We need a therapy that has a reach as long as the duration of some of those memories. They have to be reached to impact and change them; that means a therapy that has a reach over most our lives, particularly our very early lives.

In comes Primal Therapy which attacks the central nervous system, the system that radiates its traumas everywhere in the brain/body. That means we do not have to chase down every a small impact; simply go the center from where it all emanates. That means that if the immune system is damaged while we are young or living in the womb, there may be a cancer lurking years ahead. If we find ways to boost the immune system, a number of cancers seem to be reversed. And the most recent work on serious diseases involves the immune system. For many afflictions even later on, the primal, primary imprints are channeled to do harm where the system is weakest. And they become weak and ineffectual when early trauma lowers the effectiveness of part of the immune system called natural killer cells. Once affected they cannot do their job of attacking newly developed cancer cells.
Our therapy, as I have reported have doubled those cells in patients after one year of therapy. And our primary focus is to attack the central mechanisms that spread its primal tentacles throughout the neurophysiology. It is simpler and more efficient.

Speaking of how all cells remember, a study put out by John Hopkins School of
Public Health, states that “blood taken from children up to the age of five, showed molecular evidence about whether their mothers smoked or not during pregnancy”. (Nov 23, 2015 ). That means that early traumas stay around and affect us. It is not a benign memory; there are changes in the blood of the offspring. They also suggest that many environmental factors are ‘remembered” and change us in the same way. That means serious toxins stay alive when the mother is herself affected while carrying. The baby is constantly impacted by it. And there is evidence that those babies impact by things like smoking in the mother have behavior problems later on. And so when a doctor says “anything troubling you that would affect your behavior”? You are forced to say “no” because there is no way you can know until you visit the zone of the underground.

I related the story of a woman who had to move to the remote desert because she felt she was being poisoned in the city. She was poisoned: thirty years earlier when her carrying mother was chain smoking. That memory, totally unconscious, still drove her behavior. Her blood system remembered. And if she had blood and circulatory diseases we would still not know its provenance. “Do you smoke?” “No”. “We will have to do a lot of tests to figure this out.” Oh, thank you.

“Oh by the way, could you check out the imprint on the cells in my brainstem?” Wha?????

There are levels of conscious awareness, and the blood remembers as well as any mental memory; only it does not speak English; it speaks biology, a most valid and accurate language. Your body as yet has no language to distort its meaning. So listen closely; the symptoms are speaking.

What the researchers are stating now is that these traumas can go back to pregnancy days and affect us for years. You mean we are affected why back when? Yes. And those experiences have an enduring and explosive impact? Yes, don’t forget the toxins the mother produces on her own. The baby is a prisoner in a locked-in cell with no exit; and he suffers and suffers. He seems to be born depressed or anxious. Probably not. He was born neurotic (a life of imprinted pain) due to life experience. Neurotic meaning, a load of pain not integrated, that disfigures the body and alters behavior over time.

The good part of this is that we can take a blood sample and spot where you have a trauma from womb-life, and from mother’s smoking. There is now a way to measure it so we do not have to ask key questions: a pin-prick and we know. In the same way that exposure to lead can affect the body prenatally, we are beginning to see how early experience exposes us to different kinds of chemical imprints. The body gathers up all the chemicals it is exposed to, registers it and is diverted from normalcy. Yes we can be abnormal in the womb. And maternal smoking can do it all by itself. It is now a predictable event and should warn against the ingestion of any drugs during pregnancy. Remember, blood contains minute molecular memory. We can be fooled but not our blood.

So it isn’t that the blood remembers but it also stores the memory and affects us thereafter. When there are serious blood diseases later in life, we should not neglect womb-life events.

8 comments:

What really shows what you are saying is when we are ashamed ... we are not only red in the face of high blood pressure ... we will also be sweating all over the body while we mentally suffer this unpleasant sensation which in itself proves that our entire system is involved in this context... the context for what we believe only happens in our brain but throughout the body react to it... for what we now attribute the symptoms to be reason... symptoms of cause we can not think of anything else as the cause... cause what symptoms are actually caused by.We understand to not feel the reason... an neocortex dilemma. A cause of death in the limbic system... a memory that we ascribe symptoms to be the cause. Take what you want... anything you do not understand the process of but you see that something is happening then you are close to the truth of what we struggle around the psychological issues for what we do not understand a thing!If we understood... so would the cause of suffering be told on the front page of every newspaper. Anxiety and depression would no longer be targets of symptoms it would be a question of why... which they are in their scientific context... but not allowed to be!What we belive us understand is not always the cause of it... that in itself is a matter for science to solve... which is the reason why there will not be an issue because the science has not reached all the way to the cause of its consequence.

I read a lot about PT. Now only read. I think that my tinnitus can be related with child trauma. I hardy now about myself, but when I am thinking about my parent's fights I simultaneously think "I can't hear this, I don't want to hear this".

As someone diagnosed with Vasculitis, and systematically poisoned with Medecine's Cortisone over the past 2 years, I can relate to this. Getting better now I'm weaning myself off the Cortisone, and using 'naturals' like Turmeric, Magnesium, Flaxseed oil etc. but a long way to go. 3 years of doctors and specialists scratching their heads at blood test results and saying 'all your inflammation markers are through the roof!' I've always suspected it was largely Pain related; thanks Art.

I used to think that expanding ones consciousness meant to grasp for something mysterious outside and beyond myself, what a tragic idea that was, and as you said , 'what a waste'. I wish they would teach the facts, perhaps, I will have to . I'm not afraid of the work, but spending all my savings from my pension and cash jobs, to do my therapy and possibly loosing my partner over my decision to, yet I know it's right to choose to feel over money, or status or even fear of loneliness. What other choice is there...... It will be incredible to meet you, it's incredible just to be able to talk to you over the Internet. Very humbling to receive so much charity and love from you ! Who will I give my authority to when your gone? Hope to see you soon, in the next 6 months. I need to be working and studying with feeling people. I don't want to waste anymore time. Life is too precious, and wonderful to waste...Katherina

We believe... a process towards what feelings contains why they becomes a need... a need which we do not understand for what reality tells of life-threatening experiences!

The process of how consciousness in the limbic systemetska shall have opportunities to come into place in the neocortex? It is what science and the experience of its contents to illuminate!

Neocortex does everything in its path to suppress life-threatening signals ... that by processing intellectual sentences against everything what penetrates up from the limbic system... make it abstract. That is what we are!

How do we let go of a thought... a thought that nothing else does than tell us to be for what our thoughts make possible to escape ourselves... thoughts as nothing else does than save the life of us. Remember saved our lifes? We need to "understand" it... it binds us to past events... for what we today can let go of... it for what science tells his process. We simply need to understand why we understand... it binds us now to catastrophic events... and we understand to not perceive its consequence.

So what are we in the name of science?

The question is whether the limbic system's vulnerability led to the development of the neocortex? I think it has... it in the process of survival... survival for what pain of life-threatening experiences caused... catastrophic experiences so painful impossible to endure... as for neocortex to process to an abstraction... with consequences of symptoms... but logical... logical if we understand its cause. That is why we more believe in the cause than feel the cause of feelings... an abstraction we still can not learn from... a dilemma for what we think causes rather than feel them.

"Awareness + Feelings = consciousness", and the rest of what you said Paul so eloquently in a nutshell, is brilliance! However , what is going on with me I ask myself , that even though I understand all of what you said Paul, I ..........to be continued? Until then, thanks a million Art and Paul, Katherina

Review of "Beyond Belief"

This thought-provoking and important book shows how people are drawn toward dangerous beliefs.

“Belief can manifest itself in world-changing ways—and did, in some of history’s ugliest moments, from the rise of Adolf Hitler to the Jonestown mass suicide in 1979. Arthur Janov, a renowned psychologist who penned The Primal Scream, fearlessly tackles the subject of why and how strong believers willingly embrace even the most deranged leaders.

Beyond Belief begins with a lucid explanation of belief systems that, writes Janov, “are maps, something to help us navigate through life more effectively.” While belief systems are not presented as inherently bad, the author concentrates not just on why people adopt belief systems, but why “alienated individuals” in particular seek out “belief systems on the fringes.” The result is a book that is both illuminating and sobering. It explores, for example, how a strongly-held belief can lead radical Islamist jihadists to murder others in suicide acts. Janov writes, “I believe if people had more love in this life, they would not be so anxious to end it in favor of some imaginary existence.”

One of the most compelling aspects of Beyond Belief is the author’s liberal use of case studies, most of which are related in the first person by individuals whose lives were dramatically affected by their involvement in cults. These stories offer an exceptional perspective on the manner in which belief systems can take hold and shape one’s experiences. Joan’s tale, for instance, both engaging and disturbing, describes what it was like to join the Hare Krishnas. Even though she left the sect, observing that participants “are stunted in spiritual awareness,” Joan considers returning someday because “there’s a certain protection there.”

Janov’s great insight into cultish leaders is particularly interesting; he believes such people have had childhoods in which they were “rejected and unloved,” because “only unloved people want to become the wise man or woman (although it is usually male) imparting words of wisdom to others.” This is just one reason why Beyond Belief is such a thought-provoking, important book.”

Barry Silverstein, Freelance Writer

Quotes for "Life Before Birth"

“Life Before Birth is a thrilling journey of discovery, a real joy to read. Janov writes like no one else on the human mind—engaging, brilliant, passionate, and honest.

He is the best writer today on what makes us human—he shows us how the mind works, how it goes wrong, and how to put it right . . . He presents a brand-new approach to dealing with depression, emotional pain, anxiety, and addiction.”

Paul Thompson, PhD, Professor of Neurology, UCLA School of Medicine

Art Janov, one of the pioneers of fetal and early infant experiences and future mental health issues, offers a robust vision of how the earliest traumas of life can percolate through the brains, minds and lives of individuals. He focuses on both the shifting tides of brain emotional systems and the life-long consequences that can result, as well as the novel interventions, and clinical understanding, that need to be implemented in order to bring about the brain-mind changes that can restore affective equanimity. The transitions from feelings of persistent affective turmoil to psychological wholeness, requires both an understanding of the brain changes and a therapist that can work with the affective mind at primary-process levels. Life Before Birth, is a manifesto that provides a robust argument for increasing attention to the neuro-mental lives of fetuses and infants, and the widespread ramifications on mental health if we do not. Without an accurate developmental history of troubled minds, coordinated with a recognition of the primal emotional powers of the lowest ancestral regions of the human brain, therapists will be lost in their attempt to restore psychological balance.

Jaak Panksepp, Ph.D.

Bailey Endowed Chair of Animal Well Being Science

Washington State University

Dr. Janov’s essential insight—that our earliest experiences strongly influence later well being—is no longer in doubt. Thanks to advances in neuroscience, immunology, and epigenetics, we can now see some of the mechanisms of action at the heart of these developmental processes. His long-held belief that the brain, human development, and psychological well being need to studied in the context of evolution—from the brainstem up—now lies at the heart of the integration of neuroscience and psychotherapy.

Grounded in these two principles, Dr. Janov continues to explore the lifelong impact of prenatal, birth, and early experiences on our brains and minds. Simultaneously “old school” and revolutionary, he synthesizes traditional psychodynamic theories with cutting-edge science while consistently highlighting the limitations of a strict, “top-down” talking cure. Whether or not you agree with his philosophical assumptions, therapeutic practices, or theoretical conclusions, I promise you an interesting and thought-provoking journey.

Lou Cozolino, PsyD, Professor of Psychology, Pepperdine University

In Life Before Birth Dr. Arthur Janov illuminates the sources of much that happens during life after birth. Lucidly, the pioneer of primal therapy provides the scientific rationale for treatments that take us through our original, non-verbal memories—to essential depths of experience that the superficial cognitive-behavioral modalities currently in fashion cannot possibly touch, let alone transform.

Gabor Maté MD, author of In The Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters With Addiction

An expansive analysis! This book attempts to explain the impact of critical developmental windows in the past, implores us to improve the lives of pregnant women in the present, and has implications for understanding our children, ourselves, and our collective future. I’m not sure whether primal therapy works or not, but it certainly deserves systematic testing in well-designed, assessor-blinded, randomized controlled clinical trials.

A baby's brain grows more while in the womb than at any time in a child's life. Life Before Birth: The Hidden Script That Rules Our Lives is a valuable guide to creating healthier babies and offers insight into healing our early primal wounds. Dr. Janov integrates the most recent scientific research about prenatal development with the psychobiological reality that these early experiences do cast a long shadow over our entire lifespan. With a wealth of experience and a history of successful psychotherapeutic treatment, Dr. Janov is well positioned to speak with clarity and precision on a topic that remains critically important.

Dr. Janov has crafted a compelling and prophetic opus that could rightly dictate

PhD thesis topics for decades to come. Devoid of any "New Age" pseudoscience,

this work never strays from scientific orthodoxy and yet is perfectly accessible and

downright fascinating to any lay person interested in the mysteries of the human psyche."

Dr. Bernard Park, MD, MPH

His new book “Life Before Birth: The Hidden Script that Rules Our Lives” shows that primal therapy, the lower-brain therapeutic method popularized in the 1970’s international bestseller “Primal Scream” and his early work with John Lennon, may help alleviate depression and anxiety disorders, normalize blood pressure and serotonin levels, and improve the functioning of the immune system.

One of the book’s most intriguing theories is that fetal imprinting, an evolutionary strategy to prepare children to cope with life, establishes a permanent set-point in a child's physiology. Baby's born to mothers highly anxious during pregnancy, whether from war, natural disasters, failed marriages, or other stressful life conditions, may thus be prone to mental illness and brain dysfunction later in life. Early traumatic events such as low oxygen at birth, painkillers and antidepressants administered to the mother during pregnancy, poor maternal nutrition, and a lack of parental affection in the first years of life may compound the effect.

In making the case for a brand-new, unified field theory of psychotherapy, Dr. Janov weaves together the evolutionary theories of Jean Baptiste Larmarck, the fetal development studies of Vivette Glover and K.J.S. Anand, and fascinating new research by the psychiatrist Elissa Epel suggesting that telomeres—a region of repetitive DNA critical in predicting life expectancy—may be significantly altered during pregnancy.

After explaining how hormonal and neurologic processes in the womb provide a blueprint for later mental illness and disease, Dr. Janov charts a revolutionary new course for psychotherapy. He provides a sharp critique of cognitive behavioral therapy, psychoanalysis, and other popular “talk therapy” models for treating addiction and mental illness, which he argues do not reach the limbic system and brainstem, where the effects of early trauma are registered in the nervous system.

“Life Before Birth: The Hidden Script that Rules Our Lives” is scheduled to be published by NTI Upstream in October 2011, and has tremendous implications for the future of modern psychology, pediatrics, pregnancy, and women’s health.

Editor

Legacy Program

Learn Primal theory and clinical practice: the Legacy Program is now available!

Beyond Belief

Released in May 2016!

Dr. Arthur Janov examines the power of beliefs and how they are used as a mechanism for dealing with early trauma that goes as far back as birth. Beliefs are a way to rationalize with pain rooted deep in the unconscious, and reveal that love is a biological need. Dr. Janov applies engrossing case studies and his many years of experience to bring the reader one step closer to understanding human behavior, and how pain can become converted into an idea.

Lecture videos about Primal Therapy

Life Before Birth

Life Before Birth was 1st Runner-up of the 2012 Eric Hoffer Book Award in the Health category:

"This examines behavioral markers before adolescence and childhood, all the way back to gestation. Presenting case studies and trenchant research, Janov posits that much of the adult maladies affecting so many, such as anxiety, addiction, and ADHD, have roots in fetal biochemistry. His analysis offers hope for those concerned about passing on many perceive as hereditary conditions that might actually be prevented with a healthy lifestyle before and during pregnancy. Janov breaks down complex scientific and health-related ideas into accessible, relatable language. Life Before Birth provides a unique guidebook for parents-to-be and an interesting set of ideas for everyone."This is Dr. Janov’s opus magnum, a revolutionary work in every sense of the word. It may help to change the practice of psychotherapy as we know it, and above it, how we give birth today; the shoulds and should nots. It explains in detail how early trauma and adversity can have lifelong consequences and result in serious afflictions from cancer to diabetes. It can have monumental implications for medical practice, as well, and points to how we can rear healthy children.

Sex and the Subconscious

Here Dr Janov explores how trauma and lack of love stand in the way of millions of people as they try and experience sexual pleasure in life. "It is my impression that once we take a symptom - a sex problem - as THE problem and attempt to treat it as apart from the rest of us, we have a prescription for failure. Sex is embedded into our bodies and our physiology; it has to seen in context not as some alien event to be done to. Even the most recalcitrant sex problems can be well treated once we learn their historical origins. They are not really mysteries Having treated so many sex problems I now want to share what I have learned with you."

Books by Dr. Janov

The Janov Solution(Aug 2007) indicates that is almost impossible to eradicate deep depression without plunging into the depths of the unconscious where the basis of it all lies. Dr. Janov has found a way to investigate the deep brain system that provides the underpinnings of depression. He has a system to eradicate the pernicious imprinted memories that cause us to be helpless and hopeless in adult life.

Primal Healing(Oct 2006) is Dr. Janov's magnum opus, the culmination of decades of clinical observation and research. Here he melds current research in biology and neurology with his clinical work to produce a definitive thesis regarding how any psychotherapy that uses words as the predominant mode of therapy cannot make profound change.

The Biology of love (Mar 2000) Drawing on years of experience with thousands of patients and a growing body of evidence in neurophysiology, human biology and psychology, Dr. Janov shows how love or the lack of it affects not only our sense of psychological well-being but our physical health and our personalities as well.

Why You Get Sick - How You Get Well (Aug 1996) The culmination of over a decade of research and writing, Why You Get Sick - How You Get Well reveals the hidden forces of the unconscious that conspire against the human system, making us sick emotionally and physically.